This discussion reminded me of Wittgenstein's, Heidegger's, Husserl's,
Rorty's and Quine's work. I mean, haven't there been many twentieth-century
attempts at universalist, positivist epistemological formulations? Isn't this
an obsolete, archaic debate?
Hasn't this attempt to salvage an essentialist, universalist, positivist
epistemological scheme has already been attempted, over and over again? For
example, Husserl's phenomenological work began with a Cartesian, Kantian
attempt at an objective method of epistemological bracketing, but resulted in
failure, in an ex post facto classification of consciousness. Wittgenstein,
in another example, probably the most brilliant mind in twentieth-century
philosophy, attempted to construct an objectivist, Logical Positivist system
of epistemological knot-loosening, but eventually capitulated into
relativism, with his later exposition of "Language Games" in his
Philosophical Investigations.
In other examples, didn't Heidegger effectively separate "logos" from
metaphysics? If "logos" is an expression of ontological discourse,
Being-towards -the -World, therefore not Platonistically transcendental or
metaphysical, but part and parcel of a wandering, existential,
phenomenological discourse, then
wouldn't this critique establish a foundation for deconstructionism and
hermeneutic
discourse?
Finally, the skeptic of postmodernism referred to himself as an acolyte
of "Analytical Metaphysics. " Hasn't the Analytic, Positivist project been
devastated by
critics such as Rorty, Davidson and Quine? Haven't their defections and
subsequent
critiques undermined the legitimacy and even the viability of the project?
Isn't Positivism the last gasp of Platonism, with the need for universalism
and a God's eye view? Obviously, Positivism is more heavily appropriated from
Cartesian modernism, which, as Heidegger pointed out, is a slightly mutated
version of Platonism, with the conventional obsession with unanimity and
universalism.
TRV
Seattle, Washington
Rorty's and Quine's work. I mean, haven't there been many twentieth-century
attempts at universalist, positivist epistemological formulations? Isn't this
an obsolete, archaic debate?
Hasn't this attempt to salvage an essentialist, universalist, positivist
epistemological scheme has already been attempted, over and over again? For
example, Husserl's phenomenological work began with a Cartesian, Kantian
attempt at an objective method of epistemological bracketing, but resulted in
failure, in an ex post facto classification of consciousness. Wittgenstein,
in another example, probably the most brilliant mind in twentieth-century
philosophy, attempted to construct an objectivist, Logical Positivist system
of epistemological knot-loosening, but eventually capitulated into
relativism, with his later exposition of "Language Games" in his
Philosophical Investigations.
In other examples, didn't Heidegger effectively separate "logos" from
metaphysics? If "logos" is an expression of ontological discourse,
Being-towards -the -World, therefore not Platonistically transcendental or
metaphysical, but part and parcel of a wandering, existential,
phenomenological discourse, then
wouldn't this critique establish a foundation for deconstructionism and
hermeneutic
discourse?
Finally, the skeptic of postmodernism referred to himself as an acolyte
of "Analytical Metaphysics. " Hasn't the Analytic, Positivist project been
devastated by
critics such as Rorty, Davidson and Quine? Haven't their defections and
subsequent
critiques undermined the legitimacy and even the viability of the project?
Isn't Positivism the last gasp of Platonism, with the need for universalism
and a God's eye view? Obviously, Positivism is more heavily appropriated from
Cartesian modernism, which, as Heidegger pointed out, is a slightly mutated
version of Platonism, with the conventional obsession with unanimity and
universalism.
TRV
Seattle, Washington